[img]2122|right|Mehaul OLeary||no_popup[/img]Going into tonight’s 7 o’clock meeting, City Councilman Mehaul O’Leary said this afternoon he and his mates are in a comatose position.
As the Council’s leading defender of the status quo for the Arena, he is waiting for Planet Granite, the putative next lessee of the darkened Culver City Ice Arena, or landlord Mike Karagozian to make a move.
City Hall ain’t budging, he indicated.
“I am not at all confident,” Mr. O’Leary said, “that this is genuine.
“I am just questioning the whole thing.
“This company wants to get into the good graces of Culver City, wouldn’t they have started moving, at least show, if for nothing else, to dissipate the residents’ hope that something else can happen, that this miracle can happen?
“Wouldn’t they have started the process so that some people could back away?
“But nothing has happened.
“Until I see movement by either the landlord or the new tenant, I am not trusting anything that is going on.”
Finding the Variance
Two weeks ago tonight, a previously unknown use variance was discovered by city staff that appears to prohibit the arena from being used for any activity other than the original one, ice skating.
This has caused hundreds, possibly thousands, of headaches up and down the state since Planet Granite is based in the Bay Area.
While scores of skating families are expected to pack Council Chambers for the third straight meeting, pleading for the ice to stay frozen, Mr. O’Leary said the status of the Ice Arena is on ice.
What should happen tonight?
Seeing Brighter Side
“Obviously I am always the optimist,” said the second-term Councilman. “If I were the new business (Planet Granite), I would review my plan and weigh the potential negatives vs. the potential positives a little more carefully, taking everything into consideration.
“As I said at the last meeting (two weeks ago) when I heard that the new company was coming in to speak to us, I assumed this was going to be their coup. I thought it was very clever of them to do it in a public arena. I was surprised they stood their ground.”
Eight days after the Ice Arena was shut down, Mr. O’Leary, himself an owner of multiple businesses, expressed surprise that Planet Granite “has not submitted any plans to the city.
Nothing is on the record except that the landlord and this company apparently have a lease.
“It smells funny,” he said.
He senses there might be a rustling in the bushes. “I am hoping this isn’t a ploy using…because I believe there was another company, a trampoline company, that initially was in the lead” to gain a lease with Mr. Karagozian.
“Look, if this was so important to (Planet Granite), and they already have a June 1 deadline, and they already know that 30 days are needed to implement the plan of removing the ice, and none of those things has started.
“With all of this urgency and this interest in moving forward, Step One has not been taken,” Mr. O’Leary said.
“We have had no documents from the city. I am just hoping no underlying developer is sitting in the wings, hoping things go away so they can come, hat in hand, to the city and say now the property is just a piece of land that is dilapidated, and can we move forward with a development?
